That Heart Thing
by Qweb
Summary: Missing scenes from episode 1.20. What I think Danny's "I heart you" gesture meant.


_Missing scenes from episode 1.20. Personally I think the Danny's "I heart you" gesture was just the writers messing with the fans, but I decided to weigh in with my take on the topic._

**That Heart Thing**

Steve was still wondering what the heart gesture meant while the Army medic made him comfortable in the Medevac helicopter and started an IV in his uninjured arm.

The helicopter rose suddenly and Steve realized his partner wasn't inside. "Danny!" His city-bred partner, who'd compared hiking to child abuse, had run up a mountain and scaled a cliff to get help to Steve. Damned if McGarrett was going to leave him alone in the jungle. He tried to struggle up, but the medic held him firmly.

"Easy, sir, easy," the soldier soothed. "It's just the wind. Your friend's on the line. He's coming right now."

The soldiers grabbed the line and pulled the sweating, white-knuckled detective inside. That had been scarier than expected, especially when the helicopter "bounced." Danny staggered across the jolting helicopter and dropped to a seat beside his supine partner.

"At least I don't have to walk back," Danny commented, as if continuing a previous conversation. He had to speak loudly because of the rotor noise. The detective rubbed sweat from his brow with his forearm. "I get to do the most interesting things since I met you."

"Fun, huh?" Steve suggested.

"No, 'fun' wasn't the word I was looking for," Danny answered thoughtfully.

"You want to come up here, sir?" one of the medics suggested.

"No, I'm good," Danny said. His expression dared the man to make him move from his partner's side.

Apparently Army men had a better appreciation of partnership, or a stronger survival instinct, than Navy men, Danny mused, because the medic dropped the subject and started to work replacing Steve's makeshift splint. Though the soldier was as gentle as he could be, the duct tape didn't want to come loose and Steve stiffened and caught his breath. Danny put his hand on Steve's right shoulder and Steve, unconsciously, pressed his face against his partner's arm, bracing himself against the pain. They rode like that to the hospital helipad.

Steve was embarrassed to be wheeled into the hospital on a gurney. He could have walked. He'd climbed a cliff with this broken arm, for crying out loud, but now he had a neat military splint on his arm (in *ick* Army green!) and an IV in the other, so he couldn't get up without help and Danny and Chin weren't about to help him.

"Just enjoy the ride, boss," Chin said.

"There are others who need the ride more than I do," Steve argued.

The men silently watched a weeping mother follow a gurney bearing her child who'd been hit by a car.

"If they need it, they'll ask," Danny said soberly.

A nurse bustled over.

"Is this the climbing accident that Medevac brought in?"

Reduced to a statistic, Danny thought with a grin.

"It's just a broken arm," Steve said.

The nurse clasped his chin, tilting his head to examine the cuts and bruises on his face.

"And this?"

"He was hit by a falling rock," Danny said.

"It was a glancing blow. I wasn't unconscious at all," Steve argued.

"No, it only knocked you off the cliff, so you fell and broke your arm."

"So it's just a broken arm," Steve said in triumph.

Danny sighed and told the nurse. "It's just a broken arm, but feel free to sedate him for a week or so for his own safety — and mine."

The nurse asked Chin, "Are they always like this?"

"Always."

"Then I suppose that's a sign there's no head injury," she said. "All right, you'll have to wait. We had an emergency come in."

"We saw," Danny the father said bleakly.

"We'll be with you as soon as we can."

The nurse left and Chin went to fill out the inevitable paperwork, giving Steve a chance to ask the question that had been bothering him. "What was that heart thing about?" he asked.

"Ego, McGarrett," Danny chided. "That heart wasn't for you. It was for Chin. I love anyone who comes in a helicopter full of paramedics to rescue me from the middle of nowhere. You, on the other hand — your reckless endangerment of your own life left me alone on a cliff in the deepest part of the jungle with an injured partner and a dead body. You are not on my favorites list."

It was a typical Danny rant, but something was off, then Steve realized Danny was using the kind, soothing voice he used for victims' families and injured witnesses. Steve didn't like to hear it directed at him.

"I'm not dying," he said crossly. "It's just a broken arm."

"Oh?" Danny's voice raised slightly, making Steve wince. "Would you rather I yelled at you? Because I could. I should. But I was trying to be thoughtful, because I know, from lamentable personal experience, that when you have a concussion, the last thing you want is someone yelling at you!"

Returning to his friends, Chin had to grin, because Danny hadn't approached full volume, but Steve had his eyes squeezed shut in pain.

"It's not a concussion," Steve said mulishly. "It's just a headache."

"Yes, I'm sure that a boulder hitting your thick skull probably did more damage to the rock than you," Danny agreed quieting his voice. "But out of courtesy for the other patients in the hospital, I will moderate my tone."

"Don't think you're getting to sign my cast," Steve muttered.


End file.
